[Haskell-cafe] Re: Why 'round' does not just round numbers ?

Achim Schneider barsoap at web.de
Mon Oct 27 07:35:20 EDT 2008


Daniel Fischer <daniel.is.fischer at web.de> wrote:

> Am Montag, 27. Oktober 2008 11:46 schrieb Henning Thielemann:
>
> > I also know a didact which tells teachers that 1 has no prime
> > decomposition. Oh, I see, she may have copied that from Wikipedia:
> >     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_factorisation
> 
> I can believe that makes sense to somebody who considers 0 an
> unnatural number, an empty product must be frightening for them.
>
That is just mathematical trickery and dodgery, silently defining 1 as
prime by including it (even infinitely many times!) in any prime
factor, denying its existence there (by defining all units to be
non-prime) and then calling the whole algebra paradox-free, hoping that
noone notices.

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